Viewing comments posted by porkpal

Chinaberries are attractive trees and give a dense shade, but they are invasive and a nuisance here. Their berries are also toxic to livestock.

I grow Climbing Old Blush along a fence here in Texas near the Gulf coast, and she is a very healthy and vigorous rose. She is reliably the first to bloom in the spring, takes a break in the summer, and repeats well in the fall. Although, like most of my roses, she gets some black spot in the spring, it is never severe enough to defoliate her.

Here in Texas near the Gulf coast, my Sombreuil grows as a large, open shrub about 7' tall by 8' wide and blooms copiously and repeatedly. Unlike many of my roses with high petal counts, her blooms rarely ball in wet or humid weather. I do not spray and she gets a little black spot in the spring but tolerates it well.

Here near the Texas Gulf coast Dortmund blooms continuously spring through to fall including during the heat of summer when many of my roses suffer. I do dead head, but my Dortmund has never been without blooms this year. Black spot is a minor problem in the spring, but it does not render Dortmund leafless as it does many of my roses. My plant grows along a fence and measures about five feet high by twelve feet wide.

Finally this year, after about five years in the ground, my Maggie has come into her own. Unfortunately I planted her between two very vigorous roses (Buff Beauty and Lafter) who tried to crowd her out. This year Maggie has taken off and pushed her canes through the jungle. She has always bloomed well, especially in the fall, but now the show is more visible. I find the blooms shatter after only a few days, but there are more buds waiting to replace them. Like most of my roses, she is plagued by black spot in spring - a nearly normal condition here on the Texas Gulf coast.

My young plant of Mrs B R Cant has been wonderfully healthy: abundant blue-green foliage and no black spot, which is rare for the Texas Gulf Coast. However, so far she is acting more like a ground cover than a shrub or climber. She also bloomed prolifically her first year in the ground. Definitely a keeper!

Mermaid exceeds the stated size descriptions growing in my garden near the Texas Gulf Coast. Originally growing up a tree, she is now smothering a fence since the tree fell under her bulk. The plant is probably 30' long and 12' tall. Although she does not sucker, she generously forms new canes from the base. All my roses get some black spot at times, but Mermaid is only slightly affected. She blooms all spring through to early winter. When the petals fall from the blooms, the stamens stay behind producing a display of little golden crowns. She is definitely a rose who needs her space as she grows extravagantly and is well armed with thorns! The sparrows take refuge in her thicket when hawks fly over.

This rose is outstanding in my Texas garden near the Gulf coast. She is constantly covered in blooms. The shrub is very dense and maintains a tidy vase-shape. The blooms tend to be a pale salmon in the heat of the summer and a rich, deep pink as the weather cools in fall.

Like her relative The Fairy, this climbing cultivar does very well in my minimal care garden in Texas near the Gulf Coast. She has grown into a rather gangling plant with canes easily 15' long. Wherever the canes touch the ground, they root. I have lots of room, but in a small garden this rose could quickly get out of control! She is a reliable bloomer, producing a profusion of charming true pink little roses late spring to late fall. The foliage resists black spot and looks healthy even during hot summers when other roses lose most of their leaves.

Here in Texas near the Gulf coast, Kathleen forms a large rather free-form shrub that blooms repeatedly from spring on into early winter. The multitude of little blooms form long sprays at the ends of long flexible canes. Mine is nearly always in bloom, however I have not seen the color change described above. They stay a light pink, with whiter centers.

This is a wonderful rose in my minimal care garden in Texas near the Gulf Coast. It is, however, quite large here, and I don't think of it as a container rose. The foliage, which stays lush and disease resistant, is an unusual shade of yellowish green and the blooms look to me more cream than white. My plant never shows the pink described by the Antique Rose Emporium from which it came. It blooms almost continuously even into the winter, although cold, wet weather may cause the buds to ball.

I planted this rose, which I prefer to call Caldwell Pink, in my garden near the Texas Gulf Coast because it is an Earth Kind rose and likely to tolerate my benign neglect. It has stayed small for a China, which normally get very large here. The blooms are small but numerous and an unusual shade of lavender-pink. It starts blooming later than most of my roses, but it continues all summer and fall. Also, it seems to be resistant to black spot, which is rampant in this area.

In my garden in Texas near the Gulf, Archduke Charles is an unusually small and tidy shrub for a China. It normally blooms almost all year long and holds its flowers for a long time as they gradually change from pale pink to deep red. It does sometimes lose its leaves due to extreme summer heat, but endures my minimal care and watering to revive each fall.

In my minimal care garden in Texas near the Gulf, Red Cascade exceeds miniature stature, easily sending out 10 - 12' canes. This rose is one of the few which always had blooms on it through the dreadful drought of 2011. It is also very easy to root from cuttings. I have trained mine on a pasture fence where it would probably be even more huge were it not trimmed by the livestock.

I garden near the Gulf Coast in Texas and use a very minimalist approach. The Chestnut Rose took three years to bloom after I planted it and has continued to be rather stingy with its flowers as a rule. For some reason one side, about a quarter of the bush, dies back each summer with the rest unaffected. This phenomenon may explain its lack of numerous blooms. I still like the attractive shape of the shrub and it seems very resistant to black spot.

This rose is also called Martha Gonzales - at least locally - as The Antique Rose Emporium obtained its first plants from her garden in Navasota Texas. By either name the rose thrives in our hot, humid climate.

Mutabilis is one of my most reliably healthy roses; she blooms repeatedly all year and keeps disease-free foliage when others are bare. I don't know why descriptions always call her a yellow rose. The blooms on mine open a pale apricot and quickly darken to almost maroon.

Although she is supposed to be a once bloomer, my bush repeats in the fall with a less lavish flush and puts out occasional blossoms throughout the summer.

My Kathleen grows wider than she is tall, sending out long supple canes tipped with sprays of delicate blooms. She survived the Texas drought of 2011 with minimal watering and is a reliable repeat bloomer.

This rose survived the worst drought Texas has ever had this summer without being watered at all. It also has occasional repeat blooms here near the Gulf Coast. In spite of our normally high humidity it never suffers from black spot.